Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Spending time with the Beeb.

Hello my Open University readers. I've been analysing my blog traffic recently and you keep popping up, apparently from a forum. It's not like I obsessively track my stats. It's not like I've created an account on the site to try and find the source, but wasn't allowed access, and had a cry.

What is nice, is that according to google, some people are typing in incredibly pornographic things, and being directed to my blog. I hadn't really looked at my blog as porn. But maybe it is. Maybe it's pure, unadulterated filth.

I feel like I ought to start living up to this distasteful reputation. Is that what you want from me? Well, I'll tell you now, I'm pure middle class, doing everything I can to keep my bland Nottingham accent. I was raised in cotton wool, with a dishwasher, and my own bedroom. You'll only find observations on knitting here, and the occasional PC, beige, socially acceptable commentary. We're not all fucking uncivilised.

Someone's eaten all my grape and lychee tic tacs. Was it you? I realise that most people wouldn't eat them, but someone has. And it was a jumbo pack.

Has anyone else noticed that Bill and Sian (from BBC morning news) have incredible on screen chemistry? If you don't watch the news in the morning, you should. It's wonderfully patronising. Stories are covered with just the right amount of fake sorrow, and theatrical dramatics. Everything is the most tragic thing that's every happened. Every loss, is a great loss. All dead people were previously lovely. Thrown into the mix, Bill says inappropriate things, the stats guy talks about his wife drinking before the school run, and Sian desperately tries to make it all okay. It goes very well with breakfast, you should try it.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Living in a skip

There's nothing like a picnic in the park, with the sun shining, and what? What's that? Two remote control planes? Fabulous.

Can't they do it in their lounge, and fly them low in slow circles?

Or can we tax them? Flight tax?

It wouldn't be so bad, but we'd walked really far to get away from the children and ended up at an airport. Of course it's the one thing that constantly bonds us together, our general intolerance for most of society. We're like two, whingeing pensioners, 'it's too loud, too crowded, too warm'. And as I get older, I find more things to be annoying, and the previously annoying things, even more annoying. I need to re-learn that child-like acceptance of everything. When we were content with a stick and some mud, and nothing could distract us from the simple joys in life.

I spent a bit of time at the weekend poking various beetles and spiders with sticks under the vise of putting the washing out. And I realised how incredibly satisfying it was to be bigger than them and terrorising. I had to check myself, one step away from boiling the kettle, and seeking out ants. But for most of the weekend, we cleaned. I'm so glad to spot that the start of my twenty-fourth year is off to an experimental, and frankly dangerous start. The two of us, getting high off dettol and bleach, playing music at a moderate volume! I tell you, it's a bloody good job we've got Thailand in November where we'll die/nearly die, because we are craving a shake up.

The only real outcome of spring clean, is that I managed to answer the age old question, 'Where does all my money go?' Turns out it's on all the shit I own. Shit I'd forgotten about and abandoned. It's amazing what you can find when your boyfriend forces you to 'sort your crap'. Unfortunately another of our shared traits is becoming incredibly passionate about a hobbie, only for it to bore us a week later. Which is why we have boxing gloves, and a gardening set, two poker sets, tennis rackets, badminton rackets, ping pong bats, five unused cook books, how to read palms, how to read body language, how to psycho analyse yourself, tarot cards, and seventeen lip glosses in slightly different shades of red (Ginger Beards).

Car boot anyone?

Saturday, July 09, 2011

Scaredy Cat

Hello world, I've grown quite fond of you. How's life these days?

I found myself, quite recently, with the unavoidable mission of negotiating the London subway. Although for the most part, my hand was held and led by a friend, I still felt ravaged by terror. It's the lack of certainty. It's the need to get from A to B without any comprehension of the journey between. A kind of panic that sees me hopping from foot to foot in front of the departure board wishing myself a little less cowardly.

On the way back (alone) I drank coffee for bravery. Caffeine never fails (when consumed in large quantities) to turn my pupils giant, and plant a great, impatient desire for adventure. I spent a lot of time in Kings Cross, fuelled by mocha, face in the local paper, craving all the London-based fun on offer. I love it all, well, all the limited places my infrequent visits have led me: London Bridge, Richmond, Camden markets, Spitalfield, Brick Lane, the list goes on. I want to eat all my breakfasts in Patisserie Valerie, and be part of the commuting, buzzing flux. In London, I feel like a writer, an identity I have all but lost. First and foremost these days my prime label is 'office girl'. I have decided to live, as Dolly Parton once sang, from nine to five. I make excuses. I type my way through months, imagining more, bigger, bolder, better. But I rarely change anything.

And of course it would be a group of strangers, accompanying me on my train between Leeds and London, who would chide me, and make me ashamed of it. We were drawn together over the book Sheila, the dermatologist was reading, 'Three cups of tea.' I was writing about my grandad, and my childhood, growing sick in the face of the speeding view. But soon it was kindles, and politics, autobiographies, Anne Frank, London's merits, the NHS. I got off the train feeling charmed by the randomness. I guess one thing my job is teaching me to do is talk, talk like words don't always have to hold great worth. I am quickly becoming an exemplary small talker. They said they would wait for my book, look for my name. Like the English Teachers before them who believed in me, like the glorious friends who flash in and out. And yet I'm 24 tomorrow, and have done very little, it would seem, to try.

Come on then son, get your finger out.

Friday, July 01, 2011

'To die would be a great adventure' - Captain Hook

The highlight of my life for the last few mornings has been the giant rabbit on Wellington Street. Tis true, this vision may be a sign of my rapidly declining mental state, but it's very vivid. The bunny is hopping about the road as I approach, paws (paws?) full of leaflets, and then a very timid, female voice says, 'Morning.' And I think, finally, after years of attempted meditation and botched daisy chains, I am at one with nature.

I've also started to sleep with gloves on, after a beautician grabbed my hands with horror, and we looked upon there poor withered state. The whole thing is much to Ginger Beard's delight, as he got a photo of me, tucked up in bed, white, cotton gloves plump with moisturiser. Yes, while other girlfriends are refraining from shaving their legs and tash, and burping with relish, I'm keeping the good ol' love alive. He said, 'Great one for Facebook'. But he doesn't have facebook. Who does he think I am? Some schmuck who would fall for anything? I wagged my hot finger at him. 'I think not son, I think not.'

For those wishing to follow me around (for surely I have reached A-list celebrity status. I can be found most Monday evenings, semi-drowning my way to fifty laps at the Morley Gym pool. The more people that join in, the less we look like Olympic swimmers and the more we appear as traffic congestion on the M1, catching limbs, arching our backs to avoid contact, growling and splashing away. The Government are desperate to have us all touching one another. Be it on the sardine commuter train, or the thin lanes of the pool, they are eager to see brushes of skin, scratches and shared breath. Is the world shrinking? There doesn't seem enough room for us all even now. I'd have more room paddling in my bath.

In more exciting news, one is off to Thailand for a ruddy good adventure. My suicidal plan is to leave it as flights booked to Bangkok and nothing else, wing it, que sera, sera. The known has become too known. I know how to live in a nice flat, and drive a clio, and wear gloves to bed, but I want to know about Ping Pong shows, and floating markets, and the golden Buddha, and diarrhoea after buying lunch from street sellers. *Sigh*. Tis time to take a risk. After all, better to die in Thailand, than in Butlins.